Chapter three

digital marketing
Definition
• “Digital marketing” can be described as actively promoting products
and services using digital distribution channels as an alternative to
the more traditional mediums such as television, print and radio.
•  “Digital marketing” is the process of building and maintaining
customer relationships through online activities to facilitate the
exchange of ideas, products, and services that satisfy the goals of
both parties.
•  In plain English: Getting found online
How digital marketing evolved over the years?
• Back in the day, it was all about search engine optimization – (organic
search)
• Build a website
• Apply the art of on and off page SEO to your website, you build links, you build more
links, and you build even more backlinks, focus on the meta-tags, content, etc.
• You hope it shows up in Google someday
• You hope it displays on the results with the right keywords (what people are typing
in when they search)
• It was like fishing and hoping you will get a catch.
• With SEO, PPC was born – (paid search)
• Google’s Adwords (3 line ads that show up on the right/top of search engine results)
• Microsoft’s Adcenter
• Yahoo’s search marketing (Overture)
• Build ads around keywords and pay for everyone that clicks the ad and visits your
site
Overview of digital marketing
• Today, our online experience is so much more than just checking
emails.
• From talking to friends and family to doing the weekly food shop,
discovering new holiday destinations and researching things to do
locally, the online world is very much a part of our daily lives.
• As the time we spend online increases, so do the digital opportunities
available. The online experience is constantly evolving thanks to
content creators, businesses and app developers who are able to find
new and innovative ways to help us shop, learn, and connect.
• So whether you own a business yourself or would like to work for
one, now is a great time to jump in and see how you can get involved
in the digital world.
Overview…
• So we ’ve seen how digital has transformed our daily lives, but now,
let’s get practical.
• What do the growing number of online opportunities actually look
like for you?
• let us now discuss the core components of digital, how they relate to
YOUR business and how to get started.
• Let’s say you’re a mechanic whose business has grown strictly through
referrals and word of mouth. So far, you’ve not had any digital presence, but
now you want to take your business to the next level.
• How will being online help your business succeed?
• One of the biggest advantages to being online is reaping the benefits of
search. Having a digital presence means you’ll be visible when people go
online and search for a business like yours.
• So let’s assume someone searches for “mechanic Swansea” and your shop
appears in the results. How can this benefit your business?
Overview…
• Well, the possibilities are virtually endless. When a customer clicks a
link to your website there’s so much they can learn about you.
• They might watch a video you posted about auto maintenance that
demonstrates your knowledge.
• They could read testimonials from happy customers.
• They might look through your pricing guide, find your shop on a map,
or find out you offer free towing within a 40 mile radius.
• Maybe they’ll fill out a form to ask a question or request a quote.
• They might even click over to your social media sites where they’ll
find even more tips, photos and videos.
• You might not start by having all these features on your website, but
these examples should give you a sense of the many ways you can
benefit from being online.
Overview…
• Your online presence can also give you valuable insight into prospective
customers: what they want, and how to give it to them. How? Well, digital
allows you to show targeted advertising to people right when they’re
looking for what you offer.
• For example, using search advertising, you can show ads to potential
customers. Such as people searching for “auto repair Swansea.” You can
also restrict the ads to show within a certain geographic radius of your
shop. You can learn to use analytics tools to find out if people clicked on
your ad, visited your site, and took certain actions. Like filling out a form or
watching a video.
• But how do you get started? Well first, don’t be intimidated: the tools and
technology available today are easy to learn, easy to use and easy to
acquire. Many are even free.
• In fact, for many businesses, the biggest challenge to being online isn’t
getting used to the tools, but putting together a plan.
Overview…
• The first is scope. Web, mobile, social … there are so many options.
Where do you want to start, and where do you want to go?
• Next is Technology and Content : Decide if you’ll handle the technical
and creative aspects of the site yourself—which may take more time
—or get help, which may take more money.
• Finally you’ll want to consider Cost and Time: Set a realistic budget
and an achievable schedule with clear milestones—and commit fully
to both.
• Every day, thousands of small business owners are making the web
work for them. The opportunity to reach customers from around the
corner and around the globe is too big to ignore.
• It’s time to take the plunge and go digital!
Difference between digital and traditional marketing
Traditional marketing Digital marketing
Communication is unidirectional. Communication is bidirectional. The
Means, a business communicates customer also can ask queries or make
about its products or services with a suggestions about the business
group of people. products and services.
Medium of communication is Medium of communication is mostly
generally phone calls, letters, and through social media websites, chat,
Emails. and Email.
There is always a fast way to develop an
Campaigning takes more time for online campaign and carry out changes
designing, preparing, and launching. along its development. With digital
tools, campaigning is easier.
It is carried out for a specific The content is available for general
audience throughout from public. It is then made to reach the
generating campaign ideas up to specific audience by employing search
selling a product or a service. engine techniques.
It is conventional way of marketing;
It is best for reaching global audience.
best for reaching local audience.
It is difficult to measure the It is easier to measure the effectiveness
effectiveness of a campaign. of a campaign through analytics.
Objectives and goals of digital marketing
• Objectives
• One way to make sure you are found on the web is with an optimized
digital marketing campaign. Most digital marketing strategies and
campaigns have following 5 objectives.
• Reaching the right audience
• To engage with your audience
• To motivate your audience to take action
• Efficient spending on your campaign
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Goal
• Digital marketing is about generating sales and/or capturing leads
from customers that are searching on the Internet for answers.
SEO & the PPC
 Organic search explained
Now I will explain what organic - or unpaid - results are. We’ll find out
what search engine optimization means. And discover how good
website content affects the organic search results.
 Organic search…
• Back to the coffee shop, and imagine that you’ve just started offering
authentic French macarons, using an old family recipe.
• You know there must be other people in your city who would enjoy this
international treat. Someone might even be searching for it right now. So,
how do you help them find you?
• Well, when someone searches for something using a search engine, the
results page they see contains a list of organic, or unpaid results.
• Organic results typically appear in the center of the page, and are the
results the search engine decides are the best match for the search query,
or words, that were typed in.
• Results pages will also display advertisements, or paid results, though
they’ll be separate and labeled as ads. Although organic results and ads
appear on the same page, there’s one big difference: there’s no cost to
appear in the organic results.
 Organic search…
• Websites do not—and cannot—pay to appear here.
• So how can you improve your website’s chances of appearing in the
unpaid results?
• It all comes down to quality.
• Think of it this way. The search engines’ primary goal is to help people
find what they are looking for. If you can help the search engine
decide that your website is what people are searching for, you’re in
good shape.
• Making improvements to your website to help it appear in the
organic results is called search engine optimization, or SEO .
• Good SEO involves helping a search engine find and understand your
site.
 Organic search…

• So what do search engines like? Good, relevant content. Think about

exactly what your coffee shop’s potential customers might be
searching for.
• If they want a macaron, they might search for those words. But that’s
a pretty broad search and could also mean a searcher’s looking for a
recipe, or an image, or the history of the pastry.
• Understanding that, it would probably be more useful for you to
focus on appearing on searches for homemade macarons, in your
city. So your focus might be to create relevant, original content that
reinforces the “how”—that all your macarons are made from scratch
at your location, and the “where”—that your macarons are available
at your bakery, or delivered to certain areas.
 Organic search…
• This can help your website appear on searches for “macaron bakery”,
or related searches like “the best macaron in Cotswolds” or
“readymade macaron for pick-up now.”
• That’s organic search results. Showing up in them is a great way to
help customers find you—and it won’t cost you a thing.
• All you have to do is make sure that your content is relevant to the
people searching, so they’ll click and stay for a visit. We have a whole
lesson coming up on this, so stay tuned!
 Popular SEO tools
Mastering SEO optimization can be hard, especially if you’re just
starting out. Fortunately, finding the best SEO tools is easy. over 30 SEO
experts are reached to find out what the best SEO software is and what
keyword tracking tools impress the SEO experts. You don’t need to try
all these tools, you just need to figure out which one works best for
your store’s needs.
 Popular SEO tools…
1. Keyword Analysis Tools
• Free – Ubersuggest
• Freemium – Term Explorer
• Paid – SEMrush
• Paid - Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
2. Rankings Tools
• Free tool - Google Search Console
• Freemium – SEMrush
• Paid – Authority Labs
 Popular SEO tools…
3. Content effectiveness tools.
• Free – Outdated Content Finder
• Freemium – Yoast WordPress Plugin
• Paid – Buzzsumo
4. Link Building Tools
• Free - LinkMiner Plugin.
• Freemium – Moz SEO Toolbar & Majestic Backlink Analyzer Extensions
• Paid - Ahrefs Site Explorer
• Paid - Buzzstream
 Popular SEO tools…
5. Link Removal Tools
• Free – Disavow Tool
• Paid – CognitiveSEO
6. Technical SEO tools
• Free - WooRank Plugin
• Freemium –  Screaming Frog
• Paid - DeepCrawl
 Paid search explained
We’ll cover how advertising on search engines works—that’s called PPC
or search engine marketing. We’ll explain why it’s so effective, and how
businesses compete to show ads.
 Paid search explained …
• Imagine you live in dire dawa, you’re out running errands and are
desperate for a coffee. You pull out your mobile and search for coffee
shop dire dawa. 
Now you have a page full of options to consider. Every section on the
page the map, the ads, and the search results presents options. Who
knew there would be so many?
Some of these results are selected by the search engine’s organic
formula. These pages are considered the most relevant web pages
the search engine can find for this search. The other sections are ads.
 Paid search explained…
• If you take a moment to compare the ads you see to those in a print
magazine, you might notice one big difference - every ad is for a coffee
shop. 
You don’t see ads for unrelated things, and interestingly enough, the
adverts seem quite similar to the organic results. 
This is by design, and it’s what makes paid search advertising so effective.
A search engine’s most important job is to show people the results they
are looking for, and this extends to the ads. The ads you see complement
the search results page, with the ultimate goal of helping a searcher find
what they’re looking for.
 Paid search explained…
• So how exactly does search engine advertising work? There are
several models. Let’s take a look at one popular option, the text ads
you see on search engine results pages.

Every time someone searches advertisers compete for the

opportunity to display ads. It happens in milliseconds and the
searcher won’t see the details, only the winners: the ads that appear
on the page.

So, how do search engines decide who wins? The primary

components are the bid and the quality.
 Paid search explained…
• The bid is the maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click
on an ad. If someone clicks the ad, the advertiser is charged an amount
equal to or sometimes less than the bid. 
So, if an advertiser bids 2 pounds for a keyword, that’s the most he would
pay for a single ad click. If an ad shows on the page but no one clicks, it
doesn’t cost the advertiser anything at all.
Ideally, bids correspond to the value of the keywords to the business. But,
the amount is up to each advertiser. Some advertisers may be willing to
bid 50 pence for a keyword; others may be willing to bid 10 pounds. 
Bid averages vary industry-by-industry, and keyword-by-keyword. 
Bids are important, but so is quality.
 Paid search explained…
• Winning the auction doesn’t always hinge on having the highest bid.
Search engines reward ads and keywords with strong relevance to the
search. In fact, it’s possible that relevant ads can “win” higher spots
on the search results page, even with lower bids. In some cases, no
matter how high a bid, a search engine will not display the ad if it’s
irrelevant.
To summarize, paid ads offer another way to promote your products
and services on search engine results pages. 
With a well-constructed search advertising campaign you can reach
customers at the very moment they’re looking for what you offer. 
How the PPC ad auction works
• Search engines don’t show ads for every query, but when a query is
monetized, an auction takes place as soon as the user searches. A
variety of factors will determine:
• An advertiser’s eligibility for the auction
• The subsequent order in which eligible ads appear on the page
• How much each advertiser will pay if their ad is clicked
How the PPC ad auction works…
• The first factor is how much an advertiser is willing to pay for a click.
Advertisers set a maximum bid (called Max CPC) that they’re willing
to pay. Bids can be set at the individual keyword level or at the ad
group level (a grouping of related keywords).
• The second is what’s known as an ad’s Quality Score, which is a
combination of factors. Once an ad is eligible for the auction, the
combination of Max CPC times Quality Score is calculated as Ad Rank
to determine in what position it will show.
What is Quality Score?
• Quality Score plays a big role in what position ads appear in the
search results and how much an advertiser will pay per click.
Advertisers don’t see an ad’s actual Quality Score, but as Google
disclosed Quality Score of 1 is (bad) 10 is (excellent) at the keyword
level in AdWords. When Quality Score improves, cost-per-click may
(CPC) go down and/or average position improve.
What is Quality Score?
• Google looks at three things when calculating Quality Score:
• Expected click-through rate (CTR), which reflects the likelihood a
user will click on an ad.
• Ad relevance to the query. The ad copy should clearly relate to
what the user is looking for.
• Landing page experience. Are the users directed to a page that
reflects the intent of the query, and does that page provide a good
user experience?
• How does Google weigh each of these factors?
• Google has only recently made Quality Score data available. In 2016,
after analyzing a large set of Quality Score data exported from the
AdWords API, Brad Geddes, founder of AdAlysis, 
reverse-engineered the formula for the Quality Score surfaces in
AdWords accounts:
• Quality Score = 1 + Landing Page Experience weight + Ad Relevance
weight + CTR weight
• He then determined the weighting Google gives to each of the three
factors:
• Landing page experience: 39%
• Expected CTR: 39%
• Ad Relevance: 22%
• Now we have a blueprint for prioritizing optimization efforts aimed at
increasing Quality Scores. Advertisers should focus first on improving
CTRs by testing ad copy and landing page experience (that may mean
improving speed, choosing a more relevant page and so on) to
improve site engagement and reduce bounce rates. Then focus on ad
testing to improve relevance to the query.
What is Ad Rank?
• Ad Rank determines the positions in which ads participating in the
auction are shown. The better the Ad Rank, the higher the position.
The best Ad Rank gets the top ad position.
• It takes into account an ad’s Quality Score and the advertiser’s Max
CPC, plus the expected click-through rate (CTR) impact of the ad
extensions and formats available. Here’s the basic formula:
•  Ad Rank = Ad quality score x Max CPC [+ a combination of other
factors, including the context of the search such as device and
expected impact of ad extensions]
How is CPC calculated?
• Ad Rank has a big impact on the actual cost-per-click (CPC). It’s often
misstated that advertisers pay one cent more than the advertiser in
the spot below them. But that’s really just a piece of the CPC
calculation. CPC is calculated using this formula:
• CPC = The Ad Rank of Advertiser Below/Quality Score + $0.01
• In AdWords, because pricing is based in part on the Ad Rank of the
next competitor, actual CPCs can vary widely.
Here’s an example of what the ad auction
looks like in practice:
 Popular PPC tools
When it comes to PPC networks you probably only
think about AdWords and Bing. However, as you
probably know, those aren’t the only PPC networks out
there. Due to the enormous success of the PPC model,
many companies have burst onto the scene with their
own platforms. With so many companies wanting a
slice of the profits, this has lead to endless PPC
networks popping up.
Google AdWords
Bidvertiser
RevContent
AdRoll
Facebook Ads
Bing Ads
BuySellAds
Advertise.com.
AdBlade
Clicksor
Email marketing
Your email marketing options
• So, once you’re ready to start using an email marketing campaign,
you’ll need to know how to get started. An “email marketing service”
can guide you through the process from start to finish.
• We’re going to discuss the typical features and benefits of email
marketing services. We’ll also talk about how these tools can give you
insights into customer behavior, so you can deliver more personalized
content.
• While there are many options to choose from, most email marketing
tools share a few common features.
Your email marketing options…
• The first is a contact database that stores your customers’ information. At
minimum, the database needs to include an email address for each
contact. Most software services allow you to include additional
information, like name, mailing address, and other information.
• Start building your email database by adding customer data you already
have. Most services allow you to upload data from a spreadsheet, a handy
feature if you have a lot of information to include.
• Next, you want to give people the ability to subscribe (and unsubscribe)
themselves. Most email services provide a online form that you can add to
your website by copying and pasting a bit of code. Website visitors can
then submit this form to sign up for your emails. This data is then
automatically transferred to your contact database.
Your email marketing options…
• One thing to keep in mind: these forms are usually customizable, so you
can ask for the specific customer information you want. But, your online
sign up form should be short and easy to complete— you’ll probably have
more success growing a subscriber list if you don’t require too much
information. All you really need is their email address to get started!
• If you do have information about customers, you can use it to sort them
into lists. For example, let’s say you own a pet supply shop. If you know
that one set of customers own cats, you can group them in a Cat list and
send them cat food offers. Customers who own dogs would be on the Dog
list, and get different offers. The more information you have about your
customers, the more relevant your emails can be.
Your email marketing options…
• Now you’ve got your database, let’s think about the actual emails.
Email templates allow you to create a design that matches your
brand. You can reuse your template again and again, for similar email
campaigns.
• Keep in mind that many people read email on their mobiles, so be
sure yours are mobile-friendly. Many email marketing tools allow you
to preview your email on different devices before you send.
• Another great feature to know about is the ability to schedule when
your email goes out. You can send the email immediately, or choose a
later day and time.
Your email marketing options…
• An email marketing tool can even be used to track what people do
when they receive it.
• You might find that most of your customers open their email first
thing Monday mornings, or, during lunch on Friday. You can then use
your email service to record those preferences and send future
emails at more relevant times.
• Email marketing services also track who clicks the links in your email.
These links typically go to pages on your website. You can then track
what those people do, once they’re on your site. Like, whether they
read an article, or make a purchase.
Your email marketing options…
• As you learn about your customers’ behavior, you can then deliver
more personalized content.
• Many email marketing services offer a personalization feature that
places relevant content into an email template, based on a person's
interests. You can use this feature to send specific messages to
different people within your database.
Your email marketing options…
• Remember those groups of cat owners and dog owners you set up? While
most of your email will contain general information that all pet owners will
appreciate, your email template can also include one or two fields for
content that is specific for each pet-specific group.
• By targeting each group with a personalized email, you increase the
chances that they will not only read your email, but also click through to
visit your website.
• So, as you can see, email marketing tools make running a successful email
program much easier.
• Not only will they save you time, but you can track which recipients open,
and take action on your messages. The more you know about your
contacts, the more personalized content you can deliver.
 Popular Email marketing tools
Hubspot
Marketo
Activecampaign
Icontact pro
Mailjet
Constant contact
AWeber
MailChimp
Passendo
Dotmailer
Web Analytics
What is web analytics
• So, what is web analytics, exactly? Well, it’s all about using the data
you can collect from your website to give you insights about your
business.

There are lots of web analytics tools out there, and they can do a
variety of things. we’ll focus on the basics, and talk about the ways
analytics can help you, no matter which specific tool you use.
Web analytics helps you by providing data.
What is web analytics…
• A “metric” is basically anything you can count. “Unique Visitors” is a
good example. “Time Spent On Site” is another. If you sell things on
your website, you can track how much money you’re making or how
many of a certain product you’re selling. If your goal is to get people
to read your website, you can track the number of times someone
looked at a blog post or the amount of time they spent on it. All of
these things are “metrics.”

Next, you’ll generally analyze your metrics by using what are called
“dimensions.”
What is web analytics…
• When you’re first starting out with analytics, you might feel like you’re
swimming in an ocean of metrics, but you’ll quickly get used to having all
this data.
So, what do you do with it?
Well, you can use web analytics tools to learn more about your website
visitors. 
Let’s say someone places an order, downloads driving directions to your
shop, fills out a contact form, or does something else that you want them
to do when they’re visiting your site. This is known as a “conversion.” 
What is web analytics…
• Web analytics tools can tell you if the “conversion rate”, or the amount of
people that visit and then convert on one of your goals, changes based on
where they came from, whether they’d been there before, or even the
type of device they’re using.
So let’s look at that last one. If you know which devices your site is working
best and worst on, you can identify specific areas of strength to build on
and areas you’ll need to improve.
You’ll notice in that example that we were comparing “metrics” of
conversions or conversion rates, but we were breaking it down by the
device they used. The “device” data we’re collecting is called a
“dimension,” and as promised, it’s time to talk about those next.
Generally, a dimension is any kind of data you can use to describe
something you’re tracking with words.
What is web analytics…
• Dimensions include things like the device type, what browsers visitors use, their
geographic locations, and much, much more.
By taking your metrics and “slicing” them with dimensions, you can find answers to very
specific, detailed business questions, like “which devices are people finding it easiest to
convert on the goals of my website?”
And that’s just one of many questions you can answer with web analytics.
Want to know what time of day most people are visiting your website? Take your “Visitors”
metric and break that down by an “Hour of Day” dimension.
How about finding out which marketing campaigns are making the most sales? Take your
“Conversions” metric, and break it down by a “Campaign” dimension. 
As you dive into your own web analytics reports, you’ll be able to see all the metrics and
dimensions being tracked, and you can combine them and slice and dice them to answer
the questions you care most about.
 Popular Web analytics tools
Google Analytics
Clicky
Mint
Church Analytics
KISSmetrics
Open Web Analytics
 Clicktale
CrazyEgg
Piwik
Digital marketing technologies and tools
Technologies and tools…
• A report from the Aberdeen Group, titled “The State of Marketing
Technology 2016: Controlling the Chaos,” reveals that popular marketing
software is more widely used by best-in-class marketers than all others:
• CRM: Best-in-class: 76%, All others: 76%
• Video conferencing solution: Best-in-class: 67%, All others: 59%
• Email service provider: Best-in-class: 64%, All others: 61%
• Marketing automation platform: Best-in-class: 58%, All others: 50%
• Print materials & solutions: Best-in-class: 52%, All others: 50%
• Data visualization solutions: Best-in-class: 52%, All others: 33%
• CMS: Best-in-class: 52%, All others: 51%
Technologies and tools…
• The same can be said about fringe and emerging technologies, except in
the case of SEO solutions.
• Landing page or optimization/testing platform: Best-in-class: 45%, All others: 32%
• Content marketing platform: Best-in-class: 45%, All others: 30%
• Visual editing/design tools: Best-in-class: 42%, All others: 38%
• SEO services & solutions: Best-in-class: 42%, All others: 47%
• Social listening/analytics solution: Best-in-class: 42%, All others: 22%
• Event marketing/management solution: Best-in-class: 42%, All others: 21%
• Contact data/business intelligence solution: Best-in-class: 33%, All others: 27%
• Banner/display ad solution: Best-in-class: 33%, All others: 29%
• Project management technology: Best-in-class: 33%, All others: 26%
• Retargeting ad solution: Best-in-class: 30%, All others: 19%
 1. Customer Relationship Management Software
(CRM)
• With each phone call from a sales rep, every email from a marketer, your
prospects (hopefully) inch closer to your ultimate goal: purchase. But,
keeping track of them at every stage of the customer journey is no easy
task. When the lead was last contacted? Do they prefer email to phone?
What’s the next step in follow-up?
• Most times data like this ends up buried in a spreadsheet or lost on a
company laptop. With a CRM, entire marketing and sales departments can
track every interaction between customers and their business, and
maintain relevant communication throughout the buyer’s journey.
• What it’s used for: Monitoring and tracking customer relationships
• Top marketers adoption rate vs. all others: 76% to 76%
• Popular tools: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Infusionsoft, Zoho CRM
2. Video conferencing solution
• Today, remote teams are more popular than ever, which means so
are video conferencing tools that enable face-to-face meetings over
the internet. Whether you use them to vet potential clients, interview
freelancers, or collaborate with team members, they’re a powerful
addition to any marketing stack.
• What it’s used for: Collaborating and meeting face-to-face virtually
• Top marketers adoption rate vs. all others: 67% to 59%
• Popular tools: Google Hangout, ClickMeeting, join.me, Skype, Adobe
Connect
3. Email marketing software
• After all these years and updated technologies, email is still
marketers’ most valuable channel, producing $38 in ROI for every $1
spent. Service providers like MailChimp and Constant Contact allow
teams to segment their leads and customers to send highly relevant
messages used to nurture them to sale.
• What it’s used for: Nurturing leads to conversion, transactional
messaging
• Top marketers adoption rate vs. all others: 64% to 61%
• Popular tools: MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaigner, Campaign
Monitor, GetResponse, SendGrid, Mandrill
4. Marketing automation software
• Providing personalization at scale isn’t easy. Your team is only so big, and it
has to keep up with a continually growing customer base. Marketing
automation was created to help businesses take a hands-off approach to
offering relevant buyer experiences.
• Tools like Autopilot allow you track the behavior of anonymous visitors to
your website, then guide them all the way to purchase with automated,
personalized messages across channels like SMS, email, and direct mail.
• What it’s used for: Automating marketing tasks throughout the customer
journey while maintaining a personal touch
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 58% to 50%
• Popular tools: Autopilot, Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua
5. Print material and solutions
• According to software solution Priint, more than 25% of touchpoints
in the customer journey are relevant for print. Offline marketing
collateral like brochures, pamphlets, direct mail — anything you can
brand and use to inform and entertain your customer — are still
relevant today.
• What it’s used for: Converting your digital content into print-friendly
formats
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 52% to 50%
• Popular tools: Sitecore Print Experience Manager, Priint: Suite
6. Analytics and data visualization
solutions
• At the heart of every marketing technology ecosystem should be a powerful
analytics tool. Without the ability to measure the performance of your marketing
efforts, you’ll have no idea if your campaigns are producing positive ROI —
which, according to industry reports, is one of the biggest challenges facing
businesses today.
• Who’s visiting your website? How are they interacting with it? What are
prospects paying attention to? These are all questions that analytics and data
visualization tools can answer. It’s no coincidence that the biggest disparity in
adoption between top-notch marketers and all others is in this category.
• What it’s used for: Measuring the performance of marketing efforts
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 52% to 33%
• Popular tools: Crazy Egg, EyeQuant, Google Analytics, Kissmetrics Analytics,
HotJar
7. Content management software
• Back in the early days of the web, you had to know your way around the
“back end” of a website to publish and edit any online content. Coding
know-how and programming experience were a requirement for anyone
who wanted to develop web pages. Today, that’s no longer the case. Tools
like WordPress and Drupal allow you to build websites and post content to
the internet in minutes without any prior coding knowledge.
• What it’s used for: Publishing content to the web quickly and easily
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 52% to 51%
• Popular tools: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Squarespace
•
8. Landing page or website optimization
software
• Only a depressing 22% of marketers are satisfied with their conversion
rates. If you’re not one of them, you’ll want an optimization tool to help
you improve your website and landing pages.
• Software like Optimizely and VWO will help you figure out which of your
pages are performing best, and others like Instapage offer an all-in-one
option for creating, A/B testing(spilt testing), analyzing, and optimizing
individual landing pages.
• What it’s used for: Testing, analyzing, and optimizing (and in some cases,
creating) landing pages and other website content.
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 45% to 32%
• Popular tools: Instapage, Optimizely, VWO
9. Content marketing platform
• Respondents from Search Engine Journal’s 2016 State of Marketing Report claim
that content marketing is the “most effective aspect of digital marketing.” But,
there’s a lot to handle regarding the planning and execution of a strong content
strategy. There’s building the right creative team, developing a content calendar
– and even when all that’s taken care of – the content itself needs to be created,
optimized, and evaluated.
• That’s why businesses like Google and JPMorgan use content marketing software
to create informed strategies, hire talented freelancers, and publish quality
content for their fans.
• What it’s used for: Developing a content marketing plan, hiring talent, creating
content and distributing it
• Top marketers adoption rate vs. all others: 45% to 30%
• Popular tools: Contently, Clear Voice
10. Visual editing/design tools
• As the web becomes more and more visual, so must your marketing
collateral. Infographics and compelling imagery have a place in every
content marketing strategy, and this is the class of tools to help you
create them. Overlay logos, crop photos, and alter images for all your
marketing channels with software in this category.
• What it’s used for: Creating visually compelling marketing collateral
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 42% to 38%
• Popular tools: Canva, PicMonkey, Adobe Creative Cloud, Easel.ly
11. SEO solutions
• Nearly 60% of businesses spend between $1,000 and $5,000 on
search engine optimization tools every month. That’s not surprising,
considering 78% of marketers say they find positions 1-3 on search
engine results pages to produce the highest number of clicks. This
category of software will help you spy on competitor strategies, find
unique link-building opportunities, and optimize your content for
search engines.
• What it’s used for: Improving your business’s visibility in search
engines
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 42% to 47%
• Popular tools: Moz, Ahrefs, DeepCrawl, SEMrush
12. Social listening service
• To capitalize on conversations surrounding your brand, you first have to
know what people are saying about you. That’s where social listening
tools, like Mention, come into play. They’ll allow you to search for content
related to your business and see what news the web turns up.
• We know what you’re thinking: “Sounds like a search engine.” True, but
the tools in this category come with added features, like Mention’s
influencer identifier, which points brands to their most valuable
supporters, or BuzzSumo’s share counter, which tallies all the social shares
a piece of content has generated.
• What it’s used for: Identifying branded conversations
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 42% to 22%
• Popular tools: Sprout Social, Brandwatch, Mention, BuzzSumo
13. Event marketing solution
• An event landing page, beacon technology, and email follow-up software
are all valuable for marketing your event, but integrating them can be
difficult. That’s why best-in-class marketers leverage event technologies
with all-in-one tools that allow them to see the big picture, and provide
prospects more relevant and on-target communication. They can help
teams promote their event before with things like custom invitations,
engage with their business during via custom apps, and report the results
afterward with powerful analytics.
• What it’s used for: Providing an integrated marketing experience for
events before, during, and after
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 42% to 21%
• Popular tools: Event Farm, Cvent, etouches, Attendify
14. Business intelligence software
• You can’t make informed business decisions without all the facts.
Integrating your software to create a seamless customer journey is
important, but so is integrating your software to get a better view of
your business’s performance.
• Business intelligence tools pull critical data from different
departments, documents, and other software, to provide decision-
makers with the information they need to choose where to go next.
• What it’s used for: Data collection and analysis on a large scale
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 33% to 27%
• Popular tools: Domo, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau Desktop
15. Banner/display ad service
• They may seem infuriating and annoying, but banner and display ads do
work. That is when they’re done right.
• Solutions in this category allow marketers to serve ads to their prospects
across the web, and on the other end, help publishers monetize
impressions. As long as they’re relevant and well-designed, they can be
effective. Pair this technology with retargeting tools to boost ad relevance,
and ultimately, CTR.
• What it’s used for: Displaying advertisements across the web and
monetizing publisher revenue
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 33% to 29%
• Popular tools: Google Display Network, Outbrain, Taboola
16. Project management technology
• With so many projects in the works simultaneously, it’s seemingly
impossible to ensure they get done on time. Using project
management technology, best-in-class marketers keep team
members on task by making sure they hit key checkpoints along the
way to completion. Using all-in-one software with custom workflows
and communication tools, they meet deadlines promptly and
efficiently.
• What it’s used for: Managing projects and collaborating with team
members
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 33% to 26%
• Popular tools: Asana, Trello, Wrike
17. Retargeting ad solution
• The best advertisements are highly relevant ones — and they don’t
get any more personalized than retargeting ads. Used by 91% of
marketers, retargeting technologies allow businesses to serve ads to
prospects based on their behavior, like visiting a web page, viewing a
product, or abandoning a shopping cart.
• What it’s used for: Drawing prospects back into your marketing
funnel with ads targeted to them based on their behavior
• Top marketers’ adoption rate vs. all others: 30% to 19%
• Popular tools: AdRoll, Google Ads, Bing Ads